The Role of the State in China’s Urban System Development: Government Capacity, Institution and Policy

✍ Scribed by Jiejing Wang

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 221
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book investigates how the state intervenes in the urban system in China in the post-reform period. To do so, it constructs a conceptual framework based on the perspective of political hierarchy, suggesting that the state power is hierarchically organized in China’s urban system, leading to variations in urban government capacities among cities.

The book reveals that the state has largely achieved the goal of its national urban system policy to “strictly control the scale of large cities” resulting in the under-development of the large cities if they are mainly developing according to the market force. However, this has become less influential with the advances toward a market economy. Further, state regulation and policies have reduced the gaps between cities at the top and bottom of the urban hierarchy. The book argues that the Urban Administrative System (UAS) is an important tool for the state to regulate urban system development, and the administrative level has a significant effect on urban growth performance. It contends that China’s urban system is strongly shaped by the omnipresent state through the UAS, which hierarchically differentiates between the urban growth processes. By controlling the administrative-level upgrading process, the state can prevent the size and number of cities from increasing too rapidly.

This theoretical and empirical enquiry highlights the fact that the hierarchical power relations among cities and the resulting variations in urban government capacities are the key to understanding the role of the state in China’s urban system development in the post-reform period.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Abbreviations
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
1.2 Research Questions and Objectives
1.3 Defining the Urban System and the State
1.3.1 Urban System and Urban System Development
1.3.2 The State
1.4 Organization of the Book
2 Understanding Urban System Development in Different Countries: Theoretical Alternatives and Empirical Evidence
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Shifting Approaches of Urban System Study
2.2.1 Central Place Theory
2.2.2 Spatial Diffusion Approach
2.2.3 Stochastic Growth Theories
2.2.4 Endogenous Growth Theories
2.2.5 Summary
2.3 Development of Urban Systems in Different Countries
2.3.1 The “Old World” Countries: UK and France
2.3.2 The “New World” Countries: USA and Canada
2.3.3 The Former Colonies: India and Brazil
2.3.4 Summary
2.4 Studies on Urban System Development in China
2.4.1 Pre-Reform Period
2.4.2 Post-Reform Period
2.4.3 Summary
2.5 A Critique
3 China’s Urban System Development: Basic Concepts, Historical Development, and Changes of the State Policies and Institutions
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Clarification of the Key Concepts and Issues for China’s Urban System
3.2.1 City and Designation of City in China
3.2.2 National Urban System Policy
3.2.3 Urban Administrative Level
3.2.4 Urban Size, Urban Growth, and Classification of City Sizes
3.2.5 Geographical Regions and Temporal Periods
3.3 Development Patterns of China’s Urban System
3.4 Changing Policies and Institutions and the Development of China’s Urban System in the Post-reform Period
3.4.1 Introducing the Market Mechanism and Redefining the Role of the State
3.4.2 Shifting of the Focus of State Policies
3.4.3 Reforms on the Hukou System and Population Mobility
3.4.4 Restructuring the Urban Administrative System (UAS)
3.5 Summary
4 Conceptualizing the Role of the State in China’s Urban System Development
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Understanding the Role of the State in Chinese Context
4.2.1 Theories on the State and State-Market Relations
4.2.2 Theorization of China’s State in Economic Transition
4.3 Conceptualizing the Role of the State in China’s Urban System Development Through the Political Hierarchy Perspective
4.3.1 The Political Hierarchy and Organization of State Power Among Chinese Cities
4.3.2 Conceptual Framework
4.4 Research Design
4.4.1 Hypotheses
4.4.2 Analytical Procedure
4.4.3 Research Methods
4.4.4 Data
5 Identifying the Development Patterns of China’s Urban System: Effects of the National Urban System Policy
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Examining the Urban Growth Processes and Evolution of City-Size Distribution in China
5.2.1 Growth Processes of Chinese Cities
5.2.2 Evolution of City-Size Distribution
5.2.3 Summary
5.3 Modelling China’s Urban System Development in the Unregulated Environments
5.3.1 Modelling Strategy and Assumptions
5.3.2 Models and Scenarios
5.3.3 Results
5.4 Analysis on the State’s Impacts
5.5 Conclusion
6 Effects of Urban Government Capacity on Urban System Development in China
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Decentralization of State Power, Urban Government Capacity, and Urban Growth
6.3 Model and Methodology
6.3.1 Conceptualization of Issues
6.3.2 Measuring Urban Government Capacity and Other Variables
6.3.3 Models and Estimation Methods
6.4 Results of Urban Size Models
6.5 Results of Urban Growth Models
6.6 Conclusion
7 Effects of Urban Administrative System on Urban System Development in China
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Administrative Level Upgrading and Urban Growth
7.2.1 The Importance of Administrative Level for Chinese Cities
7.2.2 Effect of Administrative Level Upgrading on Cities
7.3 Methodology and Model
7.3.1 A Quasi-Experiment with PSM and DID
7.3.2 Estimation Issues
7.4 Upgrading of a County-Level City to a Prefecture-Level City
7.4.1 PSM Results
7.4.2 DID Estimation
7.5 County to County-Level City Upgrading
7.5.1 PSM Results
7.5.2 DID Estimation
7.6 Conclusion
8 Conclusion
8.1 Major Findings
8.2 Theoretical and Policy Implications
8.3 Limitations and Future Research
Bibliography